Summer 2018

Hail to the Chief

BRIAN PERSINGER PHOTO

He served as University Police chief, watching generations of students arrive and graduate. This year Bob Roberts, RBA ’90, MS ’92, is retiring after 28 years as chief and 33 years in the department. Before his retirement, he was named Chief of the Year by the National Association of Campus Safety Administrators for his “dedication to the community, exemplary performance as a police chief and service to public safety in higher education.” Since he was named the first official chief of police on Jan. 1, 1990, he has overseen the creation of a full-fledged, professional department, whose officers receive training from the State Police Academy, are as equipped as any small city department and operate out of their own building instead of a house on the Evansdale campus. The department has gone from 26 sworn and two non-sworn officers to 57 sworn officers, from two dispatchers to 20 communication officers and added 20 student cadets. Major William “W.P.” Chedester, a 16-year veteran of the department, succeeds Roberts as chief.

Not the Media You Know

Student journalists will be going out into the field to report on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a natural gas line slated to run from Harrison County, W.Va., through Virginia to North Carolina. Reed College of Media students and George Washington University students from Washington, D.C. will combine local and political reporting to break media bubbles and converge rural and urban experiences.

Finding Home

To help students find their niche on campus, WVU is expanding its Living-Learning Communities to 11 groups by 2019. Existing groups include engineering to forensic sciences to creative arts to LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive communities. The communities, designed to improve recruitment and retention, will add groups that include business and health professionals. The living-learning communities allow the students to bond with fellow students over shared interests and more quickly find a home at WVU.

Fitness Your Way

The College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences has a new degree program: a three-year Physical Activity and Well-being major that includes specialized training in movement sciences, personal training and physical activity instruction. Aside from core classes, students can customize their degrees to focus on adventure and outdoor learning, aquatics, recreational sport or well-being.

Quote Solo

CHRISTOPHER YOUNG PHOTO

“So was that even real? Do you usually do this? Is this new? I have to call my mom." -- Ashley Eby, Foundation Scholar

Incoming chemical engineering freshman Ashley Eby from Wellsburg, W.Va., was surprised during an interview with a WVU camera crew with the Foundation Scholarship, a full ride for five West Virginia freshman each year. The scholarship, awarded by the WVU Foundation, was also awarded this year to Heather Cottrill, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major from Braxton County; Morgan Glass, a biochemistry major from Wheeling; Shamil Patel, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major from Huntington; and Meg Sorrells, a speech pathology and audiology major from Hurricane. Go online to the WestVirginiaU YouTube channel to see the video of Eby’s surprise.

So Many Books, So Little Time

You could spend your whole life reading and probably never get through a new addition to the WVU Libraries’ collection. A retiring West Virginia bookseller has donated 10,000 books in honor of retired rare books curator Harold Forbes. Jim Presgraves of Bookworm and Silverfish Books donated books, pamphlets, archives, maps and more to the Libraries in honor of the man he called “Mr. West Virginia University,” who over the years was a frequent customer, selecting items for the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

The Public Health Doctors are in

JENNIFER SHEPHARD PHOTO

To handle pressing health problems, you need doctors with a public health approach. That’s why the School of Public Health is creating a Public Health and General Preventive Medicine residency, the first of its kind in Appalachia. The school will also expand the Occupational Medicine residency. Both two-year programs are aimed at training physicians in public and occupational health who are committed to serving rural and underserved populations across Appalachia.

Know Your Rights

The College of Law is stepping in to assist West Virginia consumers through a new Joint Consumer Assistance Project with Marshall University. Professors and students with the project will analyze consumer regulations and make policy recommendations to state agencies and the state legislature. The group will also assist consumer protection organizations and attorneys. The project is supported through $1 million to each school from attorneys involved in the class-action case Swiger v. Amerigas.

Fish Back in Water

A watershed in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle had lost its native brook trout years ago. This year, the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources changed that. Scientists took fertilized native brook trout eggs and grew them at WVU’s Reymann Memorial Farm, where 90 hatched before being given a new home in a Cacapon River tributary. While the fish were hatched in captivity, genetically they have the same attributes as fellow fish in the watershed.

Top Doctor

PHOTO PROVIDED

Alumna Patrice A. Harris is now the president-elect of the American Medical Association, the first African-American woman to hold the office. Harris, BA ’82, psychology, MA ’86, counseling psychology, MD ’92, is a psychiatrist in Atlanta, Ga., in private practice. She will serve as president-elect before becoming president in June 2019. “It will be my honor to represent the nation’s physicians at the forefront of discussions when policymaker and lawmakers search for practical solutions to the challenges in our nation’s health system. I am committed to preserving the central role of the physician-patient relationship in our healing art,” Dr. Harris said.

Talking Trash

SHEREE WENTZ PHOTO

English professor Stephanie Foote studies the story of garbage and what it says about us. Author of the forthcoming “The Art of Waste: Narrative, Trash and Contemporary Culture,” Foote has been named one of the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellows by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The fellowship recognizes foremost scholars who bring new perspectives to current pressing problems. “I use the stories garbage tells and the stories that we tell about garbage to explore a broad range of cultural narratives about human choices and environmental degradation,” Foote said. “If literary creation is the sign of human civilization, garbage is the visible sign of its costs.”

Salute the Scholars

Every year WVU students amass prestigious national scholarships from the service-oriented Truman Scholarship to the international exchange Fulbright Scholarship – the number of Fulbright Scholars named in a year at WVU doubled in 2018. See how all WVU scholars stack up this year.

14 Gilman Scholar: Funds study abroad.

10 Fulbright Scholars: Funds a year of study or research in one of more than 140 countries.

The Song Goes On

You know about the rich music tradition of West Virginia. But you may not know that the songs are still coming. Associate professor of musicology Travis Stimeling in the College of Creative Arts has written a book “Songwriting in Contemporary West Virginia: Profiles and Reflections” through WVU Press. Told largely in the songwriters’ own words, the book traces established personalities such as Larry Groce, host of Mountain Stage, and emerging musicians in the state.

Computer Cops

At a time when almost all of the Fortune 500 companies have been hacked and more than 200,000 cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. go unfilled, WVU is starting two new degree programs in cybersecurity. The Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources is offering a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity beginning in the fall while the College of Business and Economics launches a master’s in Business Cybersecurity Management.

Making Miracles

With the launch of a new addictions studies minor, students in social work to public health and beyond will learn skills they need to support people who are struggling with substance use disorder. Clinical assistant professor Frankie Tack, an addiction counselor with 20 years of experience, created the minor in the College of Education and Human Services. “When you work in this field, you get to see miracles on a regular basis,” she said. “People rise out of the ashes of the devastation of addiction and heal their lives, heal with their families, become productive citizens and go on to help others.”

Matter of Fact Archive

Fall 2014

From the new art museum to acupuncture to shoe research, there’s a lot happening at WVU.